Saturday, 7 May 2016

Sylvie Seignobeaux

Born in 1957, she enjoyed cars and
driving from a very early age. In an interview with Rétro Course magazine, she
talks about her earliest driving experiences, which involved crashing her aunt
and uncle’s Citroen DS into a tree, when she was five years old. Later, as a
teenager, she got further into cars through her boyfriend.

She got her start in motorsport in
1978, initially as a rally co-driver. In 1981, she took up driving herself, and
was quite successful in hillclimbs. Her first car was an Autobianchi A112, in
which she won her class in the 1981 Razal hillclimb. In 1982, she switched to a
Citroen Visa for a regional Rallye Féminin, and was fifth in her first event,
and second in another. During this time, she was far from being a professional
driver; she worked for a ski school, and was a regular skier herself.

An early highlight of her career was
a third place in the 1983 revival of the women-only Paris-St. Raphaël Rally.
Her car was a Citroen Visa, and her co-driver was Brigitte Aymé.

Citroen would be the marque that
had the most influence on her career. In 1984, she decided to enter a selection
event for a women-only motorsport initiative organised by Citroen, devised to
promote the Visa Mille Pistes rally homologation model. At the beginning of
February, Sylvie was the best of 596 women who entered the Lyon heat. The
selection challenges included slaloms and gymkhanas, economy runs and even
driving around a disused quarry whilst blindfolded. Sylvie’s heat win put her
in the final eleven-woman championship, ahead of the experienced Dominique
Perrier. She paired up with Sylviane Sitarz as co-driver.

The first round of the Citroen
Total Trophée Feminin was on gravel, the Terre de Provence Rallye. Sylvie won
comfortably from Andrée Andrina. On asphalt at La Baule, she won by a smaller
margin from Patricia Bertapelle. This early lead meant that her eighth place in
the Mille Pistes Rally did not affect her chances too much, nor her seventh in
the Boucles de Boulages. In the Tour de France, the biggest rally on the
six-event calendar, she was a comfortable fourth, which she repeated on the
Picardie Rally. Her relative consistency meant that she won the championship by
four points from Christine Driano, representing Aquitaine-Charentes.

Sylvie’s prize was a contract with
a Citroen works-supported team for the 1985 season, driving a Group B Visa
Mille Pistes. Her first event as a works driver was the Critérium de Touraine.
She did very well, finishing ninth overall, just behind her team-mate,
Christine Driano. A little later, she was eleventh in the Rallye des Garrigues.
An engine valve failure put her out of the Critérium Alpin, then a head gasket
did the same during her first overseas rally. Both she and Christine Driano had
travelled to Bulgaria for the Albena Rally. Back in France, she crashed out of
the Touquet Rally, before getting back on track in the Rallye Aquitaine-Pays Basque
with a seventh place. She was then twelfth in the Mont Blanc Rally, and a
strong tenth in the Tour de France, as well as fourteenth in the Antibes Rally.
Her second overseas rally was the Lois Algarve Rally, in Portugal, but she did
not finish, due to another engine problem. During her works team year, she
scored five Coupes des Dames, a class win and three top-tens.

After a promising debut year in
the French championship, with some excellent results, she took a year out in
1986.

Her return to rallying in 1987 was
quite low-key. She drove a Citroen Visa GTi in the Lyon-Charbonnières Rally for
the Ecully team, and was fifth in class. As well as rallying, she tried some
ice-racing at Flaine, in the same car, but professes not to remember much about
it.

The Visa was exchanged for a Group
A AX in 1988. It was prepared by Citroen Ecully and used for rallies and
hillclimbs. This was a new car, and Sylvie’s season had its fair share of the
technical problems that come with new models. She did not get to the finish of
the Monts Dôme, Lozère or 1000km de la Réunion rallies. This last event was
probably her most far-flung rally. (Réunion is a French dependency off the
coast of Mauritius). When the car ran, it was quite competitive: she won her
class in the Lyon-Charbonnières Rally, and was ninth in the
Bricolles-Côteaux-Varois Rally. The car was more reliable in hillclimbs, and
she had a best finish of fourth at Razal, with a class win. It was sold at the
end of the season.

She did one more event in 1989
with the AX, this time in Group N form, and was ninth in the Ronde de Lans en
Vercours. It was then replaced by a Peugeot 205 GTi, previously belonging to
her partner, Claude, which she continued to rally for a while, with a best
finish of eighth, in the Vins de Macon Rally, in 1989. That year, she also
acted as a co-driver in the same car.

The first part of Sylvie’s career
ends here. For some years, she was out of motorsport, and did other things,
including flying aeroplanes. In recent years, she has returned to the stages in
historic rallies in France, and has even revisited the Visa Mille Pistes. She
acts as both driver and co-driver, and has even rallied with Sylviane Sitarz
again.

As well as participating, Sylvie
has discussed her experiences in quite a lot of detail on the http://www.forum-auto.com/ forum. She remains in touch with some of the other
“Troféminin” competitors.

This post was written with the
help of Sylvie’s reminiscences and list of results.

(Image from http://vccf.free.fr/Autour_Visa/Trofeminin/trof03_mob.php)